Placemaking
in Progress
Six historic churches in Durham’s Hayti community are going through the placemaking process together, opening their land, buildings, and tables to the neighbors around them. These are their stories as they unfold.
A different way to see a church
Placemaking is how New Chapter Ventures helps a church turn underused buildings and land into something its whole neighborhood can share. It begins with listening rather than blueprints: understanding what the community around a church actually needs, then imagining together how the church’s space could meet it.
The six churches of the Hayti Cohort are early in that process. Their stories are still unfolding, and this page will grow as each one does.
Meet the six churches
St. Mark AME Zion
Anchoring Hayti since 1890, St. Mark hosted civil rights rallies when urban renewal threatened to tear the community down. That history of standing with its neighbors still shapes the church today. Now one of the area’s most rooted congregations is asking how its building and land could serve the block for another generation, and dreaming about what it wants to become.
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Monument of Faith Church
A steady presence in its neighborhood since 1933, Monument of Faith is known most of all for one thing: love. For more than ninety years that reputation has been its foundation. Now the church and its neighbors are sitting down together, rebuilding trust and turning shared land into shared ideas. It is early, honest work, and it is already changing how the congregation sees its next chapter.
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St. Titus Episcopal Church
Serving its neighborhood since 1885, St. Titus is known for a warmth that makes everyone feel like they belong. That hospitality is the starting point for its placemaking work. The church is imagining a campus where something good happens every day of the week, not just on Sundays, and exploring with its neighbors how its space could welcome the whole community.
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St. Joseph AME
An institution in Durham since the mid-1800s, St. Joseph carries one of the longest histories in Hayti. Its campus holds rooms that sit quiet through much of the week, from the kitchen to the empty classrooms. Through the cohort, the church is exploring how that land and space could serve neighbors facing a changing city, starting by listening to what the community actually needs.
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Kyles Temple AME Zion
Established on Dunston Avenue in 1929, Kyles Temple has been part of its neighborhood for nearly a century. Small but deeply rooted, the congregation knows its corner of Hayti intimately. Now it is reimagining its spaces to remain a community anchor for the next hundred years, asking how a historic church can keep showing up for a changing block.
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Covenant Presbyterian Church
One of six Hayti congregations walking through the placemaking process together, Covenant Presbyterian is at the table as the cohort imagines what its neighborhood needs next. The church has joined recent cross-congregation gatherings, strategizing alongside its neighbors about how shared space could serve the community. Its own placemaking story is still taking shape.
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